In Their Own Words

July 09, 1736

Oglethorpe Maintained Fort

In this entry of his journal, the Earl of Egmont recorded events in the journal of William Stephens, who had been hired by Col. Horsey to go to South Carolina to survey Horsey’s land grant on the Savannah River. Georgia Trustee and founder James Oglethorpe would later be identified as having a “barony” at Palachocolas, S.C. However, Egmont’s recitation of Stephens’ journal entry for July 9, 1736 suggests another reason for Oglethorpe’s ties to Palachocolas:

“He [Stephens] Set out very early, Stopt at Noon to dine in the Woods, and at 5 arrived at Palachocolas, computed 24 Miles by Water from Ebenezer, and about 60 or 62 from Savannah. This is a Fort on the Carolina Side of the River, maintain’d formerly at the expence of that Province, but upon a Colony being Settled in Georgia, they thought themselves Secure, and gave this Fort up to Mr. Oglethorpe and all the Artillery which belong’d to it, he promising to maintain it, which the Colony of Georgia Since did with a garison of 10 Men, and Capt. mackIntosh the Governor.”

Source: Robert G. McPherson, The Journal of the Earl of Egmont: Abstract of the Trustees Proceedings for Establishing the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1738 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1962), pp. 192-193.